New from the Institute for Free Speech
Nathan Maxwell Promoted to Communications Fellow
By Luke Wachob
The Institute for Free Speech is excited to announce that Nathan Maxwell is joining the organization full-time as a Communications Fellow.
Nathan has spent several semesters as an intern at IFS. He first joined the Institute as a communications intern in the summer of 2020 to assist with the Institute’s messaging and outreach efforts. Since rejoining the organization in the winter of 2020, Nathan has provided additional help in our research, communications, and external relations departments.
During his time at IFS, Nathan has been a frequent contributor to the Institute’s blog, writing about online speech, protest rights, privacy, corporate speech rights, and political spending issues. He has also published research on the relationship between out-of-state spending and electoral success and authored op-eds challenging contribution limits and deceptive crackdowns on political speech…
In Nathan’s new role, he will continue to author blog posts and op-eds while also taking on a greater role in assisting the Communications Director, contributing to the Institute’s quarterly newsletter and Daily Media Update, and responding to media inquiries. As time allows, Nathan will also contribute to the Institute’s research and policy efforts.
ICYMI
ProPublica Leak Illustrates Importance of IRS Privacy Reform
By Tiffany Donnelly
Just last month, the news outlet ProPublica unwittingly demonstrated the serious risk of leaks at the IRS when it published a story based on a “vast cache” of confidential information about individual American taxpayers.
It may be tempting to shrug off leaked or hacked IRS information when it happens to people with more wealth than most Americans can imagine. But breaches of privacy can just as easily hurt anyone – regardless of their means – as well as their loved ones and the social causes they care about. This is especially true when the IRS collects and warehouses the membership information of civically engaged nonprofits and advocacy groups.
As Americans, we all have the right to privately support causes we believe in. The fear of harassment and intimidation for expressing your view about a political or social issue is very real. Threats of being “doxed” in a culture that seems to increasingly value “name and shame” tactics is bad enough. The last thing we need is for the IRS to build entire databases of private information it doesn’t need, to one day be illicitly accessed and weaponized for political gain.
The Courts
Anchorage Daily News: Federal court ruling likely allows unlimited cash in Alaska political campaigns
By James Brooks
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned three of Alaska’s main limits on campaign contributions in a major decision on Friday…
“I think it’s a good day for free speech,” said Anchorage attorney Robin Brena, who represented the plaintiffs.
Friday’s ruling affects four rules. It upheld a $5,000 limit on the amount of money a political party can give to a candidate, but it overturned three others:
-A $500 per-year limit on the amount of money an Alaskan can contribute to a particular candidate;
-A $500 per-year limit on contributions to a particular political group;
-A $3,000 limit on the amount of money a candidate can accept from all out-of-state donors combined in a given year.
Those limits were imposed in a 2006 ballot measure that passed with the support of 73% of voters. It applied only to candidates in state and local elections, not those seeking federal office.
Friday’s decision came after almost six years of arguments that began when three Republicans sued, challenging the limits.
Congress
Washington Post: Dozens of legislators from other states to join Texas lawmakers in D.C. to lobby for voting bills
By Vanessa Williams
More than 100 state legislators from across the country will converge in Washington on Monday to join their Texas counterparts in pushing the Senate and President Biden to take action on voting reform legislation.
The lawmakers represent more than 20 states, including some in which Republican-led legislatures have passed or are considering new voting restrictions, and will urge senators to pass the For the People Act, or at least show progress on a federal voting law, before their summer recess. They are scheduled to rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday and press their case during other public events and private meetings…
Manchin, who appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, said that he supports “open, fair and secure elections” and that he is concerned that Trump’s ongoing attacks on last year’s election have left a large share of Republicans doubting that Biden was legitimately elected.
Still, he argued, the For the People Act would “divide our country further.” He has proposed changes to the bill, and on Tuesday a group of Senate Democrats signaled that they were working on a revised measure that would include some of his suggestions. Manchin said a better option would be the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which also has not garnered 60 votes, even as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle praise the late congressman and civil rights icon for which the bill is named.
Manchin said Sunday that the filibuster “makes us work together” and that he does not support an exception for the voting bills.
Online Speech Platforms
Wall Street Journal: Free Speech and Corporate Responsibility Can Coexist Online
By Susan Wojcicki
When I was growing up, every time I wrote a letter to my grandfather I worried it might be censored. My father had fled communist Poland for the U.S., but my grandfather was unable to escape and still lived behind the Iron Curtain. I learned very young that it can be dangerous when governments reach too far.
As CEO of YouTube, I grapple every day with issues related to free expression and responsibility. Companies, civil society and governments are facing unprecedented challenges and sorting through complicated questions, determining where to draw the lines on speech in the 21st century. Policy makers around the world are introducing regulatory proposals—some argue that too much content is left up on platforms, while others say too much is taken down. At YouTube, we’re working to protect our community while enabling new and diverse voices to break through. Three principles should guide discussions about the regulation of online speech.
Wall Street Journal: The First Amendment Doesn’t Protect Big Tech’s Censorship
By Philip Hamburger and Clare Morell
The time has come to subject the Big Tech services and platforms to at least statutory barriers against viewpoint discrimination. They serve the function of common carriers or public squares and enjoy profound dominance. They achieved this dominance with substantial government privileges, including privileges they sought for serving as a conduit for information. So they can be regulated as common carriers, including with state antidiscrimination provisions. And this surely is just, for they have used their government-established dominance and privileges to enforce congressionally privatized censorship.
Husseini (Substack): Interview with Nadine Strossen on Threat of Big Tech and Big Gov Collusion Against the First Amendment
By Sam Husseini
It’s become media orthodoxy that big tech firms are not bound by the First Amendment. This conventional wisdom posits that Facebook, Google and Twitter, with their enormous powers, can squash and skew speech as they wish without effective legal recourse.
However, Nadine Strossen, who was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008 and is now professor at New York Law School puts forward the following argument: “even private sector actors are directly bound by constitutional norms, including the First Amendment free speech guarantee, if you can show that there is in the legal term to describe this is called entanglement, sufficient entanglement between the government officials and the nominally private sector actors, that if they are essentially conspiring with the government doing the government’s bidding, the government can’t do an end run around his own constitutional obligations that way.”
She also said: “I was really shocked at how cavalier and how dismissive the so-called mainstream media was in sneering at Trump’s lawsuit, because it really has to be taken seriously.”
Candidates & Campaigns
National Review: Senator Mark Kelly Accepted Donation from Huawei Lobbyist
By Isaac Schorr
Senator Mark Kelly, the Democrat who unseated Martha McSally in Arizona this past November, has made quite a show of his pledge not to accept corporate PAC money — even going so far as to say that its presence in our politics “poisons our democracy.”
But Kelly’s rule is full of loopholes, which allow him to do things like accept a donation in May from a Huawei lobbyist.
Washington Post: For corporations, political ‘wokeness’ works
By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld
[T]he vast majority of corporations are sticking to their pledge not to support those Republican “objectors,” and that stance is not hurting their market performance. In short, political “wokeness” works…
When I and my Yale research team of Stephen Henriques and Charles Gress examined FEC data, including new filings for the second quarter, we determined that 85 percent of companies adhered to their pledges to not donate to objectors.
The States
Michigan Senate Republicans: Runestad drafting bill to limit recall campaign contributions, strengthen election integrity
Sen. Jim Runestad has announced that he is drafting a bill to limit campaign contributions made to elected officials facing recall efforts and to restore integrity to campaign fundraising.
Under Runestad’s plan, any money donated to an anti-recall effort above campaign contribution limits, currently $7,150 for gubernatorial campaigns, would have to be placed into a separate account and be returned to donors if no recall effort is undertaken.
“It has recently come to light that Michigan’s governor has misused a nearly 40-year-old declaratory ruling to receive millions in out-of-state campaign contributions for her reelection campaign,” said Runestad, R-White Lake. “This unorthodox flood of funds into one candidate’s campaign is a direct attack on measures set forth to ensure fair elections in this state.” …
The legislation is expected to be ready for introduction at the end of August.
